“Let Them Be”

Matthew 13:24-30

The thirteenth chapter of Matthew’s gospel is filled with powerful parables that highlight lasting principles which inform and guide our faith walk with God. The ‘Parable of the Weeds’ is no exception. It is a kingdom message about ministry, alertness, adversarial realities, spiritual wisdom, and divine intervention.

In this parable, the principles of the kingdom of God are contrasted with the principles of the world. We learn that being a citizen in God’s kingdom, authority and rule set a person apart from the confusing messages that are peddled by an oppositional world. The kingdom is about the work of sharing God’s love through the practice of mission and acts of kindness.

These aspects of servanthood require remaining awake and applying spiritual discernment with all we do for the Lord, which shows us what is right and what is wrong in our behavior and determines how we treat the people around us. This includes our knowledge that while good is being done, there will be obstacles, unfair attacks, and enemy strategies to distort the good we do as ambassadors of the kingdom of God. So, we are to remain alert as we let God fight our battles, with the clear understanding, that the harvest will come.

Our faith teaches us that God is watching, sees the work of the enemy, and protects the work of the kingdom. “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!

Pastor Dumas A. Harshaw, Jr.